My old hometown (Madison, WI) has been called Mad Town or Mad City. A former governor of Wisconsin once called it "78 square miles surrounded by reality". Which is not that inaccurate.

As a current resident, I can assure you it is still true.

Heh. I so believe that.

I read a New Yorker article recently where the writer went to Madison and the state to talk about the Walker recall election. I get the distinct impression that the anti-Walker banner in the Capital Building reading "It's Not Nice" baffled the writer no end, as it was described as being pure Wisconsin or something like that. I just nodded, laughed, and said "that is so Wisconsin". (Only in Wisconsin and possibly Minnesota would that be seen as a stinging criticism.)

Oh, I don't know. It would be pretty harsh in Iowa, too.

True; I forgot about Iowa.

By the way the actual quote is "a purely Wisconsin rebuke". Heh. It is.

My old hometown (Madison, WI) has been called Mad Town or Mad City. A former governor of Wisconsin once called it "78 square miles surrounded by reality". Which is not that inaccurate.

I visited Madison in 1993 or so; i liked it there. The friends i was visiting said their apartment was considered to be in the bad part of town, but their apartment was so nice and their friends i met were interesting in a good way, and friendly.

I'm moving away from Madison tomorrow, after living there for over 15 years. It's really a lovely city.

In most hotels there is a list of single digit speed dial numbers on the in-room phones. 1 is the front desk. 2 is security, etc. We've stayed in several hotels in Madison. In each one there was a speed dial digit for pizza. We have never seen this in any other city.

Not a place where I've ever lived, or spent much time; but my parents grew up not far away, and knew it well. Birkenhead, north-west England; just the other side of the River Mersey estuary, from its better-known, more stylish, glamorous, and dashing "twin", Liverpool. Ever since the cities came into being, Birkenhead has suffered from a massive inferiority complex vis-a-vis Liverpool (for a very long time, the two were even in different counties). Liverpool folk often took every opportunity to sneer at their smaller, duller, less cultured neighbour just across the water; they gave it the name of "The One-Eyed City".

Thanks to this situation, Birkenhead has long been notorious for harbouring a lot of bitter, touchy inhabitants -- it's not a place with obviously benign "vibes". In decades gone by, the Empire Music Hall, Birkenhead, was regarded with dread by novice comedians: the audiences were notoriously hard to please, and inclined to make very clear, their displeasure with a comic whom they did not find funny; often, by throwing things. Birkenhead has its moments; but it's not a big feature of the British tourist circuit.

Thanks ! A very long time ago, I met (on the continent of Europe) an inhabitant of Buffalo, who gave me the "beau fleur" attempt at an explanation -- unless I misheard or misunderstood. If not, it seems he had things wrong. I just thought "Anglophones, with no genders in their language, botching things vis-a-vis languages with genders." (In the English suburb where I live, there's a would-be up-market sandwich shop which calls itself "Le Maison du Baguette".)